It is known to equip bearings with sensors and electronic devices of various types. These devices need to be powered while maintaining the bearing ISO dimensions. Further, the powering solutions should be scalable and cost efficient.
An internal power supply can be implemented by means of a battery, but this limits the “mission time” as the battery life is limited. In addition, the environmental conditions, e.g. high temperatures, are very demanding. A better way of an internal power supply is to generate the required power inside the bearing. The latter approach is also known as energy harvesting.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,440,184 A discloses a double-row tapered roller bearing containing a generator for producing electrical energy. The generator includes a rotor and a stator arranged between the two rows or rollers. The rotor carries a plurality of permanent magnets with alternating polarity and the stator ring is provided with a plurality of teeth separating winding slots and carrying a coil respectively. The teeth and the central axes of the coil are oriented radially inward toward the permanent magnets.
The design proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,440,184 A is not very flexible and has limited range of functions.
The document WO 2013/160035 discloses a power generating assembly configured to be integrated in a bearing assembly, wherein the power generating assembly interacts with a magnetic wheel comprising magnetically polarized material with alternating directions of polarizations.
The above generator assemblies are designed and configured to supply power to electric and electronic devices such as microprocessors or wireless transmitters arranged within the for monitoring the bearing condition using temperature or vibration sensors of various kinds.
In a significant number of industrial applications, it is not trivial to have electric power available inside of mechanical systems where power would be needed e.g. for condition monitoring of mechanical components. In order to power the electric or electronic devices e.g. devices for reading out or processing sensor data in these applications, it is further known to supply power from the outside via wired connections.